


are heaven and saints then nothing

by verulam (krynon)



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Gen, Grand Theft Rhys, Guns, Injury, Mind Control, Strangulation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-07
Updated: 2015-11-07
Packaged: 2018-10-06 04:49:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10325957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/krynon/pseuds/verulam
Summary: “Honour? There’s no such thing in nature!”“…Are Heaven and Saints then nothing?”Based on the lovely @kashuan’s art, which you can findhere!She doesn’t trust it. She doesn’t trust his swagger or his voice; she doesn’t trust the lilt in his step and the cadence to his tongue; she certainly does not trust the way he stares at empty corners.Title from Ben Jonson’s Volpone.(Written 2015, posted 2017)





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 2015, posted in 2017 due to account deletion.

Crr-ash! Bang, bang- a sound like electricity, whipping in the air with bite. Acid, noise, spilt-

The shadow of a figure, dipping from side to side as they pull themselves from the ground. In the dark, the sharp, shorting blue of the metal is all that’s visible, frantic reflections on plate glass and steel.

Not that anyone’s watching.

The figure uncurls, pulls themself to full height and stretches backward. A thick gasp of smoke covers them, prompts them to swing their head around- the debris is sharp and the reek of it hangs acrid in the air.

There’s a pause. A crack- teeth slamming together, clenching. A click, metal and the clink of something delicate on glass.

Another howl of the electric.

A smile.

***

When Fiona had been sent rattling back home in the escape pod, she’d been… ready. Or something like it. The snapping of her gun, the smooth movement of the barrel into place, the steady build-

Helios crashes, and with the way it seems that her family is crashing with it, she barely has time to be glad the tyrant is dead.

When she shoots Gortys, and when there’s a big crash of nothing, and she’d had to get back to normal in the blink of an eye? When it had been finished?

Then, when she looks up into the sky and sees Helios gone? That’s when she’s glad.

She doesn’t know if Rhys survived. When Sasha mentions it, they hug. But still.

The tyrant was dead and Helios ruined. Even if the whole vault thing was for nothing, at least that was something.

Sasha buries her face in Fiona’s shoulder, and it doesn’t feel like much. But it was something.

***  
There’s a pause. A break.

It’s quiet.

And it doesn’t last.

***

When they meet again she doesn’t trust him. He sways when he walks, his eye flashes yellow instead of blue, and he even wears different clothes. There was something to be said for doing laundry, but whatever had happened between the crash and now has made him dress like Jack, and she doesn’t trust it.

And another thing- He seeks her out. And it’s not like that’s unexpected, because he seemed to attract trouble, but-

She doesn’t trust it.

“You no-class, scheming, Pandoran scum!” He screams at her.

Yeah, she’s not trusting him further than she can throw him, and her hands are tied behind her.

***

Things start to come together.

The stranger turns out to be Loader Bot, the bandits are lead by Vaughn, and the whole thing is- it’s dumb, too coincidental and too easy. 

Rhys is the saviour of “The Children of Helios” apparently, and- look, she doesn’t trust it. Even with the prospect of bringing Gortys back, seeing Athena again, all of the progress-

They walk into the camp. She’s tense, and she clutches at her weapon with furtive fingers.

The statue propped up on a rock is literally Jack in all but name. She peers at Rhys as they walk past it, and he seems shocked.

But she doesn’t stop watching, and he glances furtively back, again and again, with something in his gaze that she can’t recognise. 

“If they were bowing to you, you’d know this feels awesome.”

Fiona holds the gun to her side a little tighter than she should.

She doesn’t ask exactly what he’d been doing in that Atlas facility all this time. She doesn’t ask how a middle manager somehow had the ingenuity to build himself out of the ruins of a space station. She doesn’t ask who told him how.

She watches.

***

There’s a pattern.

The man that gasps at Loader Bot’s reveal can’t be the same as the one that screamed profanity at her. She’d recognised the cadence from however many ECHOs of Jack she’d been forced to watch on huge screens over the years.

There’s a pattern.

***

In the end, they meet in the desert outside the camp, trailing after his footsteps. At his excited, breathless vigour, they’d all trekked out- he’d found loot, apparently, hopefully with money but certainly with something valuable.

And that’s why they’re alone when it happens, no Loader Bot or guns.  
Because one second he and Vaughn are playing some dumb game on his arm, and the next he’s screaming.

He’s on the floor, yelling, clawing at his eyes and screeching and it’s not like they can even get close- her heart is beating out of her mouth and he’s flinging punches, scraping up the dirt as he yells Jack’s name-

“Fiona?!” Sasha doesn’t know what to do and her voice is cracked and painful as she tugs at Fiona’s arm, and when she glances at Vaughn he can’t get any nearer than she can. Vaughn nearly does it. He gets near, near enough for her to wonder what he’d even do, before a leg flails into him and he’s sent sprawling, rolling to avoid a blow to his head.

Rhys sprawls on the floor and convulses. “Jack!” He cries. It’s- tinny, cracked. It sounds like it hurts.

They watch. 

His fingers- he’s clawed them, he’s- he’s crying, and he-

And then he’s up.

Just like that.

The dust clears, and he dusts himself off as they stand and it’s...

It’s-

“Hey,” Rhys coughs and pauses. 

Silence.

“Ooh, ouch. Damn, kid really can scream, huh?” He clears his throat. “So, pals, you guys figure it all out yet?”

He brandishes- it’s not even a gun, it’s his arm, something shining out of it in code that looks- well. Threatening.

It’s not that Rhys was a threat. Rhys was a dick, but not actually dangerous. But this isn’t Rhys. His brows curls up and he leans back on his legs and his smile is a snarl.

This isn’t Rhys.

Silence. Bated breath. None of it seems to bother Rhys, who sways and leans like he has all the time in the world.

“Wow. Tough audience. Anyway, your dear ol’ friend Loader Bot’s got some interesting code in him and I-” He drags it out and something flashes bright in the arm’s display. “I’ve got the key!” He smiles. “It’s an exploding key. The best kind of key.”

“You- Loader Bot?!” Somebody gasps, and then someone shifts beside her- “Don’t you dare-!”

“What?” He laughs, and she throws her arm out- Sasha has learnt by now to stick behind, and she keeps Vaughn held back. “Why the shock? Why all of this... negativity?” She frowns at him, stepping back and pushing everyone with her. Rhys grins, sharp at the edge. “ Aw, C’mon, don’t be like that. It’s all fun and games here, negative nancies need not apply. No hate!” He snickers.

She’s hesitant to say ‘Jack’, because it isn’t. It’s Rhys, and he swaggers. “You- you figured I’d be dead that easy?!” He wheezes out barks of laughter. “I told you-! Ha ha, oh my god, I literally told you all about how I was in his head, and you- you still trusted me?” He’s cackling.

Fiona barely holds back her snarl, flings her arm further back as he wheezes and laughs in jumps and starts. “Oh my god this is- this is precious, I’m- Ohhhfuck, gimme a second, christ-” He’s clutching at his sides, swaying back and forth with his laughter.

He’s an asshole. And he’s not Rhys.

Sasha mumbles into her ear. “Jack?” Fiona’s answering breath is quiet and affirmative.

Handsome Jack was still not dead.

“Hey, kids!” Rhys leans forward, pressing a mechanical finger to his lips, eye glinting. “No talking over the teacher, shh-shh. It’s quiet time.” He stamps, threatening, and giggles again when all three of them startle. “Oh, cute, there we go. Got it now? It’s not your little itty bitty baby Rhysie anymore.”

She feels Sasha move behind her, but her hand is already at her gun. Rhys has noticed, catching her eye- his arm is back up, and they’re engaged in a staring contest before she knows it, Rhys grinning down at her as she narrows her eyes and her finger itches-

Vaughn’s voice, cracking at the edge: “Rhys! Rhys, I know you’re in there-”

A sharp cackle. “Ha! Oh, oh, my heart- that’s so sweet! They’re like puppies, you know?” He takes a step towards Fiona, and she’s forced to push the other two back again as he snarls. “Pets. You know what I’m talkin’ about? Little pests, best domesticated and quiet, right?”

The dust whirls around their feet and Fiona says “No,” at the exact same moment she shoots him.

A blur. 

Just a second, just a shot of adrenaline. Vaughn gasps, Sasha jumps back, and Fiona keeps her gun raised.

Not again. She’s not gonna do this twice.

But then- 

Rhys looks up and Fiona feels it in her gut with a sickening crunch that there’s tears in his eyes and oh fuck what has she done-

“Fiona…” He mumbles. His eyes are glassy, glazed, and he clutches at his gut with his metal hand because his other one is clenched tight and shaking and- “You… you shot me?”

Oh, fuck. 

Fiona lets her hand drop.

“...Rhys?” 

A lot of things seem to happen at once. Vaughn is vaulting forward and- its panicked, her eyes hurt, she-

“I- told you he was- get off of me Sasha-! Let me-!” 

But there’s- Okay. There’s things to do and. Okay. Apologies. She can do that and- be cautious, okay, be-

Sasha pulls Vaughn back bodily, and Fiona steps forward and feels like her nerves are buzzing.

“Rhys-” She starts, and if she’s staring then she can’t help it, because there’s no room for a misstep here. She stares and tracks him, watches as he presses his palm deeper into the wound and chokes a little. “Rhys, we- we were sure, if we had known you were still in there I’d…” She doesn’t say ‘never’ because she can’t be sure, but-

His eyes are filling with tears, mumbling as he stares down and wheezes wetly, choked little sounds, which-

Hang on. She’d shot him in the side.

“You…” It’s pathetic and broken, and Fiona would feel her heartstrings ache if she hadn’t been looking at the way his palm is digging so deep into his side it’s drawing more blood than the bullet had.

She’d barely grazed him.

A breath. He smiles.

Silence, and then-

“You really are darn gullible, huh?”

Her stomach flips and she can barely hold in something animal that calls for her to scream in frustration. Rhys crosses his arm, tosses his hair out of his eyes, and he smiles.

“Wow, like. Really. Just gotta pull out the ol’ puppy eyes and I had you hook, line and sinker.” He pouts mockingly, one bloody finger at his lips as he leans back and bats his eyelashes . “Thought you said you weren’t into pets, Fi’?”

“You assh-”

He cuts over her. “‘Specially my little buddy over there. You were all like, ‘oh! My dear good friend Rhys who I totally don’t wanna marry!’” His voice is high, cruel. 

Jack’s. 

He keeps mocking Vaughn, eyes locked over her shoulder. “‘Oh Rhys, I knew you were still in there! Please let me save you from the big, bad Handsome Jack so we can go and live in a little house with a white picket fence and three Labradors!’’” 

He cackles.

Even now, after shooting him, it’s unsettling.

“I almost regret not playin’ the long con on this one, y’know?” Rhys grins. “See how long I could get away with it. I was just eager to see the looks on your dumb faces-” He wheezes out the end of his sentence in a giggle. “Ooh, yep! Those ones! Ha! Haha, oh, that’s-” He wipes a faux tear from his eye. “Ha, oh. Priceless.”

“Hey, bestie.” His gaze swings back to her and it’s frightening. Cold and cruel, he looks at her with a hatred she’s not sure she even saw on Rhys’ face when they were being dragged backwards through desert. “Betrayal’s su-uper easy for you, huh? Diiiiiiidn’t even hesitate.” He rolls it around in his mouth even as he hisses in pain. “And geeze, this stings.”

His lips flatten, his mouths open and his eyes flash quick to the side and then back. He pauses, long enough that Fiona thinks ‘now, now, grab your gun and do it-’ but then.

Then, he’s looking back and he’s smiling savagely. “Well, what do you know? Turns out, Rhys will remember that.”

Then there’s a moment where the air feels so thick she could choke.

And- And she has to make a decision.

(Jack sees it when she does, watches, and then it’s a game of quick draw and her hand is at her gun as his fingers are at her neck-)

She has enough time to yell “Get away-!” at them before her windpipe is closed, and she has enough time to grapple at the fist, see them running (thank god-) and then-

It’s not- It’s-

She looks at his face and it’s-

Okay. 

As she starts to black out, and the world burns down into cinders in the corner of her eyes, she snarls: “Next time, I won’t be so kind.” 

Next time, he’ll never get the chance to play games with them, regardless of how he cackles at her now.

Next time? She won’t be kind at all.

 

(The floor drops out from beneath her. Fiona remembers that being kind is honourable.)

(Fiona remembers that Pandora doesn’t care for honour.)

**Author's Note:**

> Find me [here!](http://verulams.tumblr.com)


End file.
